Author Topic: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?  (Read 6816 times)

Paul der Krake

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Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« on: September 01, 2019, 12:00:03 AM »
Writing them like this. . . instead of like this...

You know who you are.

Explain yourselves.

marty998

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2019, 12:38:40 AM »
Not me... I write them lots and lots, but always with no spaces (maybe one space at the end).

Sometimes when I'm feeling rebellious I might use four....

Dollar Slice

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2019, 02:18:09 AM »
There are a couple of different major 'styles' when it comes to things like punctuation, hyphenation, grammar, etc. The two most popular for American English are the AP (from Associated Press) and Chicago (from the University of Chicago Press) manuals of style. They basically give you a way to be consistent when applying arbitrary rules like whether or not to put spaces in an ellipsis. If you're running a magazine or newspaper or website you can tell all your writers/editors/proofreaders to use the AP style guide and know that you'll get a consistent result instead of half your articles looking one way, and half another way.

AP Style says an ellipsis is "..." and Chicago says it's ". . ."

So posters who use spaces are using the Chicago style (although I'd guess most of them don't know it - they were just taught that way or picked it up somewhere). It's equally correct. Just different.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 12:25:08 PM by Dollar Slice »

KBecks

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2019, 12:00:27 PM »
dramatic effect

charis

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2019, 12:23:19 PM »
dramatic effect
No. It's a requirement or feature of certain writing styles (including some legal writing), as stated above.

BicycleB

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #5 on: September 01, 2019, 07:39:11 PM »
To annoy Kraken!

Just kidding...

seattlecyclone

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2019, 07:46:04 PM »
Maybe I need to start using the single-character ellipsis(…). The dots look slightly smaller.

sui generis

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2019, 05:52:28 PM »
I use Chicago style when I'm actually quoting something to signify skipped text (as I was taught in law school).  I use AP when I'm writing casually to indicate a pause or other tone nuances/quirks (not skipped text).  To me " . . . " feels more formal (prob because I learned it in law school and it's required for legal writing).

lookingforadelorean

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2019, 06:48:56 PM »
There are a couple of different major 'styles' when it comes to things like punctuation, hyphenation, grammar, etc. The two most popular for American English are the AP (from Associated Press) and Chicago (from the University of Chicago Press) manuals of style. They basically give you a way to be consistent when applying arbitrary rules like whether or not to put spaces in an ellipsis. If you're running a magazine or newspaper or website you can tell all your writers/editors/proofreaders to use the AP style guide and know that you'll get a consistent result instead of half your articles looking one way, and half another way.

AP Style says an ellipsis is "..." and Chicago says it's ". . ."

I had a very strict AP style advisor in grad school, so I picked it up there with the eleventy billion papers I wrote. When I was in my program AP style dictated spaces between ellipses.

solon

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2019, 07:01:10 PM »
Kelley from the Office explains how dots work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnFsIcTBwQ

OurTown

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #10 on: September 10, 2019, 02:37:10 PM »
I still double space after colons:  and periods.  See?

Paul der Krake

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #11 on: September 10, 2019, 03:04:19 PM »
I still double space after colons:  and periods.  See?
You  disgust me

seattlecyclone

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #12 on: September 10, 2019, 03:35:36 PM »
How do you feel about non breaking spaces? Do they also disgust you? If I write a long paragraph with them do I cause horizontal scrolling to happen on this message board software platform? I'm sure going to find out about that! Just a little bit longer should do it! There we go! Seems surely long enough now even on a pretty big monitor.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #13 on: September 10, 2019, 03:54:41 PM »
How do you feel about non breaking spaces? Do they also disgust you? If I write a long paragraph with them do I cause horizontal scrolling to happen on this message board software platform? I'm sure going to find out about that! Just a little bit longer should do it! There we go! Seems surely long enough now even on a pretty big monitor.


RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #14 on: September 11, 2019, 05:20:11 AM »
I still double space after colons:  and periods.  See?

Hmmm, I single space after colons and semi-colons but double space after periods.

Just to add to the confusion, scientific journals often have their own rules. 3 journals can have 3 different ways to cite references.

BicycleB

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2019, 08:46:48 AM »
I used to double space after periods. I started switching to single space after someone online opined that double spacing is like proclaiming "I'm over 40!" So now single spacing is my typographical equivalent of the dye that keeps me from being a complete graybeard...

Trendily yours,

Bikey

PDXTabs

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2019, 08:49:11 AM »
...
. . .
.  .  .

Seriously, cut it out. We aren't using typewriters anymore.

Philociraptor

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #17 on: September 11, 2019, 08:57:32 AM »
I used to double space after periods. I started switching to single space after someone online opined that double spacing is like proclaiming "I'm over 40!" So now single spacing is my typographical equivalent of the dye that keeps me from being a complete graybeard...

Trendily yours,

Bikey

Oh hey, me too! It doesn't help that on iPhone you can type a period by using two spaces instead, which results in a period+single space.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2019, 01:53:48 PM »
I've always typed elipses with spaces between them.  It just looks right to me.  Not sure what that means . . .

marty998

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #19 on: September 12, 2019, 02:35:07 AM »
How do you feel about non breaking spaces? Do they also disgust you? If I write a long paragraph with them do I cause horizontal scrolling to happen on this message board software platform? I'm sure going to find out about that! Just a little bit longer should do it! There we go! Seems surely long enough now even on a pretty big monitor.



OOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRDERRRRRRRRRRRRR

ORDER!

AUUUUDAIRE!

...

I'm going to miss him.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #20 on: April 27, 2020, 11:42:15 PM »
Some good news:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/microsoft-word-two-spaces-trnd/index.html

Do the right thing, Microsoft. Make spaces in ellipses illegal too.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #21 on: April 28, 2020, 10:38:08 AM »
Some good news:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/microsoft-word-two-spaces-trnd/index.html

Do the right thing, Microsoft. Make spaces in ellipses illegal too.

Nooooooo!!  Spaces are good.  Spaces make it easier on the eyes!  I want my spaces!

Look at this.  Two spaces, nice separation between the sentences.
Look at this. One space, two sentences shoved together.

And (. . .) is nicer than (...)    give them space to be their distinctive selves.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #22 on: April 28, 2020, 11:38:39 AM »
I was taught in my elementary school keyboarding class that two spaces between sentences was correct and have done it ever since.  MS is (as usual) wrong in what they're doing.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #23 on: April 28, 2020, 11:53:36 AM »
I was taught in my elementary school keyboarding class that two spaces between sentences was correct and have done it ever since.  MS is (as usual) wrong in what they're doing.

I learned it in typing class back in 1967.  I bet MS also thinks the Oxford comma is wrong.

Zikoris

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #24 on: April 28, 2020, 12:01:14 PM »
In my experience it seems to be an old person thing. People over 50 really seem to like to put a million dots in everything they write, especially on Facebook.

jinga nation

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #25 on: April 28, 2020, 12:06:28 PM »
to annoy the grammar police.
because it's fun.

BicycleB

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #26 on: April 28, 2020, 12:41:23 PM »
In my experience it seems to be an old person thing. People over 50 really seem to like to put a million dots in everything they write, especially on Facebook.

I think the "million dots" is a precursor to the emoji - a creative use of characters to express an emotional effect. Imagine yourself 25 years from now. People call you old. Everyone whose experience and education are shorter than yours is complaining "old people keep using these horrible emojis for no reason". That's probably how the dotters feel.

:)
« Last Edit: April 28, 2020, 12:42:55 PM by BicycleB »

chemistk

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #27 on: April 28, 2020, 12:48:01 PM »
I, for one, am glad MS is finally going to start flagging this for correction when typing. As a young-un, I was taught (early '00s) that everything should only be monospaced. Well, sentence structure-wise that is. Line spacing is a different animal.

It's really frustrating to go and make edits to an older document that has double spacing between sentences. Good thing the find&replace tool can fix it all instantly.

Now, if everyone would just agree that we need the Oxford comma, 80% of all my grammatical pet peeves would be solved.

dandarc

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #28 on: April 28, 2020, 12:59:37 PM »
Just don't ever use the single-character Unicode ellipses.

…

doesn't even save much space over:

...

Zikoris

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #29 on: April 28, 2020, 02:00:38 PM »
In my experience it seems to be an old person thing. People over 50 really seem to like to put a million dots in everything they write, especially on Facebook.

I think the "million dots" is a precursor to the emoji - a creative use of characters to express an emotional effect. Imagine yourself 25 years from now. People call you old. Everyone whose experience and education are shorter than yours is complaining "old people keep using these horrible emojis for no reason". That's probably how the dotters feel.

:)

No need to wait 25 years, people who use emojis the way old people use dots already deserve to be shamed to hell and back.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #30 on: April 28, 2020, 02:03:08 PM »
I, for one, am glad MS is finally going to start flagging this for correction when typing. As a young-un, I was taught (early '00s) that everything should only be monospaced. Well, sentence structure-wise that is. Line spacing is a different animal.

How come everyone else needs to change because of the faulty teaching you received?

Paul der Krake

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #31 on: April 28, 2020, 03:33:38 PM »
I was taught in my elementary school keyboarding class that two spaces between sentences was correct and have done it ever since.  MS is (as usual) wrong in what they're doing.

I learned it in typing class back in 1967.  I bet MS also thinks the Oxford comma is wrong.
That's cute, but two spaces stopped being correct when computers came.

The Oxford comma, however, should never die.

Kris

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #32 on: April 28, 2020, 03:48:51 PM »
Most current style manuals specify one space after a period.

I, being in my fifties, was raised to use two. It has taken me a while, but I've managed to make the switch.

Rural

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #33 on: April 28, 2020, 05:53:28 PM »
I switched gratefully and quickly as soon as one space after periods became even remotely acceptable. (It's a total coincidence that most of arthritis in my thumbs, of course.)

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #34 on: April 28, 2020, 06:12:30 PM »
I'm old and proud of it.  Two spaces forever.  And you young whippersnappers get off my lawn!

PDXTabs

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #35 on: April 28, 2020, 08:20:27 PM »
As a young-un, I was taught (early '00s) that everything should only be monospaced.

I was probably introduced to a word processor in 1990 or 1991 and it was definitely single space by then. I don't understand how some people can't accept that some things change. We don't inoculate our kids against smallpox anymore and we only put one space after the period.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #36 on: April 29, 2020, 06:51:47 AM »
As a young-un, I was taught (early '00s) that everything should only be monospaced.

I was probably introduced to a word processor in 1990 or 1991 and it was definitely single space by then. I don't understand how some people can't accept that some things change. We don't inoculate our kids against smallpox anymore and we only put one space after the period.

Not all change is for the better.  After all, Americans dropped their "u"s.  Sheer laziness.   ;-)

beltim

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #37 on: April 29, 2020, 07:00:45 AM »
Some good news:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/microsoft-word-two-spaces-trnd/index.html

Do the right thing, Microsoft. Make spaces in ellipses illegal too.

Nooooooo!!  Spaces are good.  Spaces make it easier on the eyes!  I want my spaces!

Look at this.  Two spaces, nice separation between the sentences.
Look at this. One space, two sentences shoved together.

And (. . .) is nicer than (...)    give them space to be their distinctive selves.

Oddly enough, I agree that two spaces between sentences is good, as it makes it more readable.  There is also experimental evidence for this.  On the other hand, I prefer the unicode ellipses, which may depend on font but I thought was between the "no space" and "space" variant.
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .

dandarc

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #38 on: April 29, 2020, 09:03:17 AM »
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .
Respectfully, this is the most offensive thing I've ever seen on this forum.

Then again, I had to work on a bug not so long ago that basically boils down to "POS system that you signed up to work on knowing it is a POS, lets you enter that character, but then it causes problems later."

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #39 on: April 29, 2020, 09:18:53 AM »
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .

It's OK.  Not everyone can be right all of the time . . .

beltim

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #40 on: April 29, 2020, 09:37:22 AM »
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .
Respectfully, this is the most offensive thing I've ever seen on this forum.

Then again, I had to work on a bug not so long ago that basically boils down to "POS system that you signed up to work on knowing it is a POS, lets you enter that character, but then it causes problems later."

...
…     <--I like this one
. . .

It's OK.  Not everyone can be right all of the time . . .

Why the hate for the symbol? 

nereo

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #41 on: April 29, 2020, 09:44:09 AM »

I, being in my fifties, was raised to use two. It has taken me a while, but I've managed to make the switch.

Was it painful?

I, too, was taught two-spaces following a period by my older (and oddly all British) english teachers in HS; then I had it drilled out of my in college and grad-school.

Sadly, I think the current trend is to forego punctuation altogether, as in the Twitterverse
« Last Edit: April 29, 2020, 09:47:22 AM by nereo »

iris lily

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #42 on: April 29, 2020, 09:46:46 AM »
Kelley from the Office explains how dots work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnFsIcTBwQ
I love Kelley Wisdom.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #43 on: April 29, 2020, 09:55:46 AM »
C'mon everyone, one space after sentences and reduced spaces in ... is clearly more efficient. We're all engineers here, right :-)?

dandarc

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #44 on: April 29, 2020, 10:15:31 AM »
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .
Respectfully, this is the most offensive thing I've ever seen on this forum.

Then again, I had to work on a bug not so long ago that basically boils down to "POS system that you signed up to work on knowing it is a POS, lets you enter that character, but then it causes problems later."

...
…     <--I like this one
. . .

It's OK.  Not everyone can be right all of the time . . .

Why the hate for the symbol?
It is a Unicode character - this one takes 2 bytes. So you're only saving 1 byte of space compared to 3 dots, so you're probably only getting half the space savings you thought you were in memory and on disk. Even less physical space on the page. Plus that symbol is too compressed visually - just hard to look at.

Then inevitably someone is going to cut and paste that into a computer system that isn't built to handle it. Depending on the nature of what happens, someone like me will get called in to figure out what to do. So now you using that character has cost me time (or earned me money but cost me happiness - system being so shitty unicode characters are a problem is way down the list of problems I enjoy solving in 2020).

Can mess with your SMS messages. Technically rules like "a single SMS can be up to 140 characters" are only true if you limit yourself to the GSM character set. This can impact organizational costs in a big way if you're not careful - splitting that message into 2 often doubles the cost of sending or receiving the message if you're sending and receiving messages via services such as Twilio.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #45 on: April 29, 2020, 10:23:10 AM »
C'mon everyone, one space after sentences and reduced spaces in ... is clearly more efficient. We're all engineers here, right :-)?

Efficiency isn't necessarily better.


We cld do awy wth mst vwls and stll cmmnicat . . . bt it wld b trrbl (thgh mor effcnt).

beltim

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #46 on: April 29, 2020, 10:30:05 AM »
...
…     <--I like this one
. . .
Respectfully, this is the most offensive thing I've ever seen on this forum.

Then again, I had to work on a bug not so long ago that basically boils down to "POS system that you signed up to work on knowing it is a POS, lets you enter that character, but then it causes problems later."

...
…     <--I like this one
. . .

It's OK.  Not everyone can be right all of the time . . .

Why the hate for the symbol?
It is a Unicode character - this one takes 2 bytes. So you're only saving 1 byte of space compared to 3 dots, so you're probably only getting half the space savings you thought you were in memory and on disk. Even less physical space on the page. Plus that symbol is too compressed visually - just hard to look at.

Then inevitably someone is going to cut and paste that into a computer system that isn't built to handle it. Depending on the nature of what happens, someone like me will get called in to figure out what to do. So now you using that character has cost me time (or earned me money but cost me happiness - system being so shitty unicode characters are a problem is way down the list of problems I enjoy solving in 2020).

Can mess with your SMS messages. Technically rules like "a single SMS can be up to 140 characters" are only true if you limit yourself to the GSM character set. This can impact organizational costs in a big way if you're not careful - splitting that message into 2 often doubles the cost of sending or receiving the message if you're sending and receiving messages via services such as Twilio.

Well, I can honestly say I've never thought about it saving a bit.  And I don't use that while texting.  I just think it's aesthetically more pleasing.  But thanks for explaining.

Kris

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #47 on: April 29, 2020, 10:46:41 AM »

I, being in my fifties, was raised to use two. It has taken me a while, but I've managed to make the switch.

Was it painful?

I, too, was taught two-spaces following a period by my older (and oddly all British) english teachers in HS; then I had it drilled out of my in college and grad-school.

Sadly, I think the current trend is to forego punctuation altogether, as in the Twitterverse

A little, but I had good motivation. Interestingly, it happened for me extremely late. As in, probably 4 years ago. I was writing full-length books, so I needed to be consistent. And sheer volume of text being produced meant that I had a lot of practice in a very short time. Now, I find myself occasionally slipping and doing two spaces, and it looks odd and bugs the hell out of me.

dandarc

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #48 on: April 29, 2020, 10:56:50 AM »
Another strike against the single character ... - actually was wider than 3 dots on Facebook in Chrome. So "save's space on the screen" isn't even a given.

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Re: Why do some forum members put spaces in their ellipses (...)?
« Reply #49 on: April 29, 2020, 11:03:54 AM »
This whole thing is starting to remind me of when I was in grad school and lived with two graphic designers.  They would get into these emotional debates about which type-fonts should be used. Certain companies were openly mocked for their font choice and each of them claimed to be working on ‘their own font’ which was a modernization of blah-blah-blah but fixed the inherent flaws of yackity-yack.